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Author Topic: Bought a 4k Blu Ray Player  (Read 646 times)

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Online andrewfi

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Bought a 4k Blu Ray Player
« on: May 07, 2024, 10:49:26 AM »
I have decided to go into home theatre in a small way.

I used to have a Sony Pro Logic system but that's been my bedroom audio system for quite a few years now. I also have an old Phillips Blu Ray player.

I figured that if I'm going to get myself a full-on surround sound A/V system I should get myself a decent Blu Ray player. It arrived a couple of days ago. A Panasonic UB-820 4K player.

Damme, that thing is fine. I have some movies on my server in 4K HDR with quite large file sizes, but this thing stomps all over the only movie I have on both 4k Blu Ray and download. It's also significantly better than the streamed version.

But what really surprised me was the difference it made to DVDs and standard Blu Rays. The player does a great job of upscaling standard Blu Rays to 4k. Significantly better than my TV can do. And DVDs look way better than they ever did from the Phillips player.

Maybe the thing that surprised me most was the sound. I don't know what's going on, but the sound from both types of Blu Ray is noticeably better than what I get from streaming or downloaded content. It's not that it's playing louder. There's more bass, my meter tells me that the subwoofer is now going to 25Hz whereas the other sources go to 35Hz, and there's more of it. But overall the sound from movies is fuller, more dynamic than from the Phillips, server or streamed.

I'll be off the Spain in a few weeks so the new amplifier(s) and speakers will have to wait until I get back in September. But I am looking forward to it.

Has anyone else noticed a significant difference between sound from a lesser Blu Ray player and other sources? I've not seen people talking about it. But I'm sure that what I am hearing is real.
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Offline Manny

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Re: Bought a 4k Blu Ray Player
« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2024, 04:55:31 AM »
I didn't know Blu Ray was still a thing. I, perhaps mistakenly, thought it just another format of DVD/player. Sort of like Betamax once was to video.
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Online andrewfi

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Re: Bought a 4k Blu Ray Player
« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2024, 05:34:28 AM »
I didn't know Blu Ray was still a thing. I, perhaps mistakenly, thought it just another format of DVD/player. Sort of like Betamax once was to video.

Streaming has certainly been replacing physical media for video and audio, but it is still a thing—for the time being, at least.

The quality difference between streaming and 4K Blu-Ray disks is unmissable. That's what I was after. I do not plan to buy huge numbers of Disks, but there are some movies that I want to enjoy at their best, and that means 4K Blu Ray.

For context, a 4K Blu-Ray, playing uncompressed audio and 4K visuals, uses from 82 up to 128 Mbps. Netflix, in contrast, recommends a 15 Mbps connection for UHD content! As far as I recall, Netflix audio is always compressed.

You do not need a Blu-ray player for Peppa Pig videos, but I could see a clear difference when comparing UHD Blu-Ray, Netflix, and downloaded versions of Blade Runner 2049.
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